Plagiarism is a very serious issue. It is something that you should watch for because it can wreak havoc with your search engine ranking. Fortunately, there are several free tools out there that make this not only much easier to deal with but may also catch other issues. I will list the best one I have found and a few others as well.
Plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty and a highly unethical practice, which can get you expelled from any educational institution. For this reason, it is highly important to check for plagiarism before submitting your work or prior to publication in order to make sure that you do not encounter any kind of plagiarism issue. One of the most effective tools for plagiarism checking is Copyscape , which is available at Copyscrap e.
What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is essentially the “imitation of someone else’s work” without giving them their due credit.
Wikipedia defines plagiarism as the “wrongful appropriation” and “stealing and publication” of another author’s “language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions” and the representation of them as one’s own original work.
Examples of Plagiarism
There are dime a dozen examples of plagiarism and some of them are as follows:
- copying someone else’s work without citing them properly,
- paying an external writer/essay mill to write the essay on your behalf,
- stealing ideas and verbal conversations (overheard during discussions etc) and presenting them as your own,
- copying data from websites, library books and other sources verbatim,
- using someone else’s images, music, videos and even style of writing in your own work without their explicit permission is a punishable plagiarism example.
What Are the Different Types of Plagiarism?
Plagiarism can commonly be divided into 5 types. They are as follows:
- Direct plagiarism: Copying someone’s work verbatim (word by word) without giving credits.
- Self-plagiarism: Copying or producing an assignment influenced by your own previous work (also called unintentional plagiarism).
- Mosaic or patchwork plagiarism: Quoting someone else’s work without quotation mark or changing the language (of original work) while keeping the structure same.
- Accidental plagiarism: Unintentionally forgetting to cite the original work, misquotation etc.
- Outsourcing: Paying essay mills, friends, hiring article writers, bloggers to write on your behalf.
We’ve tried to balance this list by including free and paid tools for plagiarism detection. Make sure to choose the one that fits your bills.
Top 20 Best Free Plagiarism Checker Tools Compared (2021)
Here is the list of top 20 best plagiarism checker tools in 2021:
- Grammarly
- ProWritingAid
- Whitesmoke
- Duplichecker
- PlagiarismCheck.org
- Quetext
- Small SEO Tools Plagiarism Checker
- Copyleaks
- Viper
- CheckForPlagiarism.net
- WordPress Plugin
- Plagium
- Plagiarism Checker
- Copyscape
- DMCA Scan
- Dustball
- Webconf Tool
- Plagtracker
- Plagiarisma
- Unicheck
1 Grammarly (Best Plagiarism Checker, Ever!)
Grammarly is by far the best plagiarism checker tool for teachers and students alike. Trusted by universities like Berkeley, Stanford University and University of Michigan, Grammarly is an automated proofreader and plagiarism checker.
How Does Grammarly Process & Detect Plagiarized Content?
Grammarly has a huge database of 16 billion web pages and ProQuest’s databases and every document/writing you process through it is instantly scanned by Grammarly’s plagiarism checker to find any traces of similarity or copied content. If you’re looking for the best plagiarism checker like turnitin, Grammarly is your thing.
With Grammarly’s expertise to scan document based on the document type the chances of unoriginal text break to a minimum. This makes it the preferred website to even check for unintentional plagiarism for teachers. Some of the document types are:
- Academic documents (essays, research proposal, case studies, or book and literature reviews to name a few)
- Business documents
- Medical documents
- Creative writings (scripts, novels etc)
Not only that…
Grammarly also holds the crown of the World’s largest used grammar checker tool which checks for over 400+ types of grammar mistakes, contextual spelling mistakes, redundancy and incorrect sentence structure to name a few. Read my hands-on Grammarly review for more detailed info.
Grammarly is available for free as a browser extension and also as offline MS Word add-in, and Outlook integration. Grammarly plagiarism checker is undoubtedly the best online plagiarism checker for students and teachers with percentage score.
Pros of Grammarly Plagiarism Checker
- Grammarly is trusted by over 600 universities and millions of bloggers, writers and creative people.
- Detects the slightest chance of plagiarized content and displays percentage report.
- Efficient grammar and punctuation checker (you sure can have different tools for this, but having everything in one place is a bonus).
- Free online plagiarism checker with percentage.
- Proofreader at its best along with free PDF report of all errors (including detected plagiarism) that can be exported.
- The ability to scan document based on document style and type makes it even more efficient than it’s competitor plagiarism checkers.
- Emails you your weekly performance report (how many words you wrote, improvement in writing style etc) which is a good boost if you’re using to improve your English on the side.
Cons of Grammarly’s Plagiarism Checker
- I’ve been using Grammarly for quite a couple of years now and Grammarly plagiarism checker has no cons to be honest and it shows why it is the most used plagiarism checker by writers, bloggers and academic professionals. Try It Now.
(Student? Check out our exclusive Grammarly student discount coupon to save even more.)
Try Premium Version (20% OFF) ››
Also Read:
2 ProWritingAid (with 25% discount)
ProWritingAid’s online plagiarism checker tool is one of the best in the market. It helps to check for copied content in manuscripts, novels, or literary works.
ProWritingAid is the best website for plagiarism check for authors/creative writers.
Besides being a trusted plagiarism software, ProWritingAid shows up as your writing coach. It detects grammar errors, style issues, and over 20 different mistakes that authors and editors are likely to make.
Check out my detailed ProWritingAid review to know why it is one of the perfect Whitesmoke alternatives out there.
Pros
- ProWritingAid offers you a lifetime deal that makes it the best choice because it saves you from paying a recurring amount like other tools.
- Checks for plagiarism directly from the MS Word via the add-in.
- Works fine with Scrivener and is the best plagiarism checker for Google docs.
- It efficiently detects even 10% plagiarism in your manuscript.
Cons
- I personally prefer the UI of Grammarly over ProWritingAid. Other than that, I think it’s just as good as Grammarly and do not see any cons as of my one year experience with it.
Please Note: Use the code “GYD1925” to claim your ProWritingAid discount coupon and save a whopping 25% OFF your purchase.
3 Whitesmoke Plagiarism Checker (Best Plagiarism Checker for Teachers)
Whitesmoke is one of the top plagiarism checking software that is very robust and accurate. Besides being a grammar checker and proofreader, Whitesmoke’s anti-plagiarism software is trusted by many.
Whitesmoke scans billions of online web pages and resources to check for unoriginal content or copied content in your document and displays the same.
Whitesmoke online plagiarism checker isn’t as famous and efficient as Grammarly’s but makes a great alternative if you want to try out. With browser, MS Word and Outlook integrations it takes your content analysis to the next level.
Pros
- Scans and matches your essay with billions of web pages to detect similarity in your essay.
- It is cross platform supported and also available online so its easy to use.
- Best plagiarism checker for research papers.
Cons
- Doesn’t have as large a database as Grammarly
- There are not many cons of Whitesmoke so you can choose it safely.
4 Duplichecker: Best Free Plagiarism Checker
Duplichecker is one of the best free plagiarism checkers for teachers and writers. Duplichecker does not cost a dime so it’s handy if you want to check your writing/school assignments or student submissions on the go.
If you outsource of a lot of online content (blog articles) from freelance writers or you are preparing an academic essay, thesis or any other assignment then Duplichecker is a must have in your content arsenal.
With Duplichecker, you need to just paste the text in the text box on the top of the page and hit “check for plagiarism” button. You can also upload a Word Doc if you prefer it that way.
Pros
- Duplichecker is a free online tool to detect plagiarism so you can use it to your heart’s content.
- It provides over 50 scans for duplicate content each day which is makes it ideal for teachers to bulk check essays/papers.
- Duplichecker is very easy to use hence there is no learning curve.
Cons
- Each search is limited to 1000 words.
- You require to create a free account to have more than one search per day.
Recommended readings:
- Best Online Proofreading Tools the pros use.
- Comma issues? See how you can end it once and for all.
- Copyscape alternatives that are better and cheaper than it.
5 PlagiarismCheck.org: Free duplicate content checker
PlagiarismCheck.org is a reliable plagiarism checker tool that focuses on helping teachers, students, online content creators.
It is extremely useful if you want to review your own submission for plagiarized content (unintentional plagiarism) before submitting it to your college professor or content authority.
After you upload your writing, PlagiarismCheck scans and matches your content with a regularly updated database of writing. It then marks the unoriginal content and generates a report of plagiarized content.
Pros
- It is an efficient anti-plagiarism checker or software to check plagiarism that you miss while checking manually.
- Even if it is a paid tool, it offers one free trial of it’s plagiarism checker so you can use it to see if it matches your expectation.
- You can upload multiple file formats like Word Doc, PDF, rtf etc directly to the tool.
Cons
- It introduces their paid version after the first free trial.
- PlagiarismCheck.org is not cheap. With $0.30 per 275 words it comes out as even more costlier than Grammarly that has a LOT more to offer.
- It clearly mentions, PlagiarismCheck.org doesn’t warranty the score so it is not helpful if you’re planning to file a lawsuit for duplicate or unauthentic content.
6 Quetext: Best Plagiarism Checker & Citation Assistant
Quetext is what started as a basic duplicate content checker but has now achieved some of the coolest features that make it to the top 10 of our list pf best plagiarism checkers.
The free version is simple and intuitive where you paste your text on their website and get it matched for duplicate content across a database of web pages and others.
With QueText’s DeepSearch feature you can get your content checked not only against common words but also for contextual plagiarism. With contextual plagiarism, your sentences in the essay gets checked as a context of the neighboring lines.
This makes it the best plagiarism checker for students to make sure your essay is error-free before submitting. Read my detailed Quetext review to know more.
Pros
- Quetext is one of the best free plagiarism detector software for teachers, students, freelance writers and any content creator.
- Quetext seems to have a better search and match technology where it uses contextual analysis to find duplicate sentences/phrases that other tools can easily ignore.
- Multiple file uploads (up to 5 files) for bulk checking.
- Best Free online plagiarism checker with report (exportable PDF reports)
Cons
- The free version doesn’t include DeepSearch Technology
- Unlimited reports can be used only with the paid version which costs $9.99 per month.
Copyscape
One of the most useful, and powerful plagiarism checker tools out there is Copyscape. It offers paid and limited free plagiarism checking features. In the SEO industry, Copyscape proves itself as a trustworthy plagiarism checker tool that performs its job beyond typical. The overall site’s interface and design also looks a little bit out of date comparing it to paid seo tools for plagiarism such as Grammarly, Copyleaks, etc.
To provide a summary, here are the pros and cons of this tool:
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- Great detection capabilities
- Able to submit page URL for detection
- Free; No Registration needed
CONS:
- Strictly limited to 3-5 checks per day
- Unable to upload a file / manual text
- Outdated user interface
To use this tool, visit this link.
Duplichecker
Duplichecker also deserves a spot in this list of free SEO tools for Plagiarism. This tool is quite similar looking with the Plagiarism detector and also offers identical features. It has the same ability to check using URL, document file or manual text input. Each query is also limited to 1,000 words similar to the Plagiarism detector’s limit.
What makes Duplichecker different is that it has other SEO tools packed along with its free plagiarism checker. Plus, accessing those won’t require you to signup or register for an account. It also has a keyword research tool, backlink tool, long-tail keyword research tool, and so on.Advertisementhttps://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-8635538801422069&output=html&h=280&slotname=3994317885&adk=62557496&adf=164980204&pi=t.ma~as.3994317885&w=800&fwrn=4&fwrnh=100&lmt=1636923618&rafmt=1&psa=0&format=800×280&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.freesoftwaretips.tech%2Farticle%2Fseo%2Fbest-free-seo-tools-for-plagiarism-checking-2020%2F&flash=0&fwr=0&fwrattr=true&rpe=1&resp_fmts=3&wgl=1&adsid=ChAIgITDjAYQ5uCFx8qBos1kEjkADZ4y2SVnS2RLV3mLPdLF8VgOhkMR3XudFpbal5utfUJuvAYzDtQRchEfajClAv_syO3e4FyYtns&uach=WyJXaW5kb3dzIiwiOC4wLjAiLCJ4ODYiLCIiLCI5NS4wLjQ2MzguNjkiLFtdLG51bGwsbnVsbCwiNjQiXQ..&dt=1636923572876&bpp=2&bdt=4923&idt=9322&shv=r20211109&mjsv=m202111080101&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3Dee9e2354474b3f2b-22c2242afacc0033%3AT%3D1636923586%3ART%3D1636923586%3AS%3DALNI_MYWAscdt6b-r4LrbDXzyS0XxdSjwQ&prev_fmts=0x0%2C800x280%2C280x600%2C1349x635%2C800x280%2C280x600&nras=2&correlator=7867354831402&frm=20&pv=1&ga_vid=49691035.1636923575&ga_sid=1636923577&ga_hid=317419840&ga_fc=1&u_tz=60&u_his=1&u_h=768&u_w=1366&u_ah=738&u_aw=1366&u_cd=24&dmc=4&adx=115&ady=3515&biw=1349&bih=635&scr_x=0&scr_y=1130&eid=44753743%2C31063685%2C21067496&oid=2&psts=AGkb-H_OVyTuEgxJBHd8lefNdc5Cb1B1A9V6xTXatKJ1DjIlHc1KwNxvODF8oNoe0Rg5MtyhHluDXW6OkXAK66iB&pvsid=1433982209247392&pem=967&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&eae=0&fc=1920&brdim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C1366%2C0%2C1366%2C738%2C1366%2C635&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7CeEbr%7C&abl=CS&pfx=0&fu=128&bc=31&jar=2021-11-14-20&ifi=4&uci=a!4&btvi=4&fsb=1&xpc=NJBOHupTG4&p=https%3A//www.freesoftwaretips.tech&dtd=45562
PROS:
- Check document, URL or manually entered text for Plagiarism
- Unlimited usage; No registration required
- Free; Has other useful free SEO tools
CONS:
- Average detection capability
- 1,000 words limit per query
- Unable to detect some plagiarized content
- ADS Supported site
You can check out Duplichecker along with it’s other tools here.
That’s it so far! That’s the best free SEO tools for Plagiarism which I can recommend and have personally tried. If you have any SEO tool in mind that’s not covered in this article or have any feedbacks or suggestion, feel free to leave a comment below!
Conclusion
Plagiarism: so, so 2014. You know it and we know it. You can’t expect to steal content and pass it off as your own anymore — we’ve got our eyes on you! But what about those who aren’t into plagiarizing but want to ensure that they aren’t accidentally doing that themselves? Well, plagiarism checkers are here to help with that.